Expanding the bottle bill worth state discussion

5:07 PM,
Dec. 8, 2012

Written by

Press-Citizen Editorial Board
| Our View

When Iowa passed its Beverage Container Deposit Law in May 1979, the legislation originally included only beer and soft drink containers. A few months later, wine and liquor bottles were added.

Since then, the bulk of those products have been kept out of landfills locally and throughout the state. In fact, according to the Container Recycling Institute, among the 10 states with some form of bottle bill, the recovery rate for aluminum cans is 88 percent, compared with 35 percent in the other 40 states.

Iowans recycle glass bottles at a rate of 92 percent and PET - or plastic - bottles at a rate of 76 ...